Courgette Glut - usage ideas

I've been asking around the alottment this year for ways of preserving courgettes and the general opinion is to make a ratatouile and freeze that. Nothing wrong with ratatouile, but I wanted sometning else.

I tried some tests earlier in the season, slicing, blanching and even freezing whole raw courgettes but on defrosting all of them where just mush and completely useless. I've now found two things to help use up excess courgettes.

Tomato & Courgette Chutney

500g Tomatoes (chopped)
500g Cougettes (chopped)
1 Onion (chopped)
100ml White wine vinegar.
150g Demerara Sugar
2tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
2 cloves Garlic (chopped)

Place all ingredients into a pan, heat until sugar is disolved then cook slowly for 30 mins or till sauce resembles syrup. Place into clean jars, this recipe will fill 2 standard 450g jam jars with atablespoon or two left over.

This is a very basic chutney (there are many chutney recipes out there with much more complex recipes), but this is nice and simple and tasty too. I also recommend using the above recipe with just tomatoes..using 1 kg of toms instead of the tom/courgette mix.

Courgette Soup

1Kg Courgettes
250g Potatoes
2 cloves Garlic
1 Onion
Olive Oil
Handful of herbs (Your choice!)
Water

Cook the onion and garlic gently in the olive oil to just soften it, add the chopped potatoes and continue cooking gently for around 10-15 mins. Add the chopped courgettes and herbs and cook for another 5 mins then just cover with water. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 10 mins. Allow to cool slightly, then liquidise. Portion up the soup as required and freeze for use later.

Grated Courgette - courtesy of Alys Fowler, Gardeners World, Fri 27th August

Wash, top and tail 1KG Courgettes (1 KG fits nicely into a colander) and grate into a colander and add 2 teaspoons salt to it and mix up well. Leave for half an hour and the salt will draw out a lot of liquid from the courgettes. Squeeze more liquid out using your hands and bag up the grated courgettes and freeze for later use in pasta sauces or stuffings etc.

I got over half a pint of liquid out of 1kg of courgttes so I'm fairly confident the grated courgettes will be fit to use when I defrost them...but I will update this topic at a later date when I do so.

Any other Courgette glut, preserving ideas out there?

Steve...

 

None that I could find easily with the search function Marley..and anyway..these are my tried and tested methods...adding to the wealth of knowledge already here

Steve...

 

Yup...I posted that one too...:hehe:

Steve...

 

Frozen courgettes are never going to be fresh courgettes - same goes for any vegetable.
Part of the the trick is DON'T DEFROST THEM. Much better if used from frozen.

 

Marrow and ginger jam, smashed courgettes (slow cook with fresh herbs, lemon or lime, in olive oil, until mushy, mix with pasta, or put on good bread toasted, with goats cheese and melt, or mix with philly and tuna). Great in a curry, courgette fritters (grated, mixed with pancake style batter and herbs, esp mint). STuffed, like aubergine parmigiana. Use a y-peeler to peel into long pieces, chuck away the seeds, or use in a soup, and dress with mint, olive oil, white wine vinegar and lemon juice. Peel into strips and use instead of pasta in a lasagne style dish. Quiche, cakes, like carrot cake, look on www.riverford.co.uk at their recipes.

I had stacks and have been trying to find as many recipes as poss.

 

I know there are many ways to use courgettes, I'm particularly interested in ways of long term storage or recipes that use courgettes that can be frozen apart from the old standard of ratatouille. My first two recipes in the topic starter above are recipes that allow courgettes to be preserved for later use, the chutney pickles them whilst the courgette soup freezes/defrosts very well.

So if anyone has any tried and tested methods of using courgettes, that store well for later "over winter" use...I'd be interested in reading those.

Many thanks.

Steve...

 

Well, the smashed courgettes freeze okay, and is versatile, as do the cakes. I wonder if grated courgettes, which are then squeezed of moisture and frozen would keep better?

 

Been doing a pickle of mine

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWTqAaWskCo"]YouTube- Prince - Little Red Corvette[/nomedia]

Just tried it, not bad at all. Better than the raw product.

Asked Mrs Becky if she wanted to try some, she said she'd already eaten an entire jar that she'd found in the fridge. Can't be that bad then.